Apeiron Streets
It’s almost go time…
Of the three glittering jewels of the Perseis Star System, Shin had never been anywhere but the advanced and intricate world of Kore. Even then, he had never set foot near the peaceful suburbs, nor the impressive high rises of the capital city. All his life had been spent in the industrial facilities and inner ghettoes of Apeiron’s outskirts. Abandoned as an infant, he should never have made it to adulthood.
But he had been born lucky, unlike so many other abandoned children. A scavenger from one of the largest street gangs had discovered him and taken him in. As a result, he’d spent his life, surrounded by violence, crime, and the absence of Mother, the sophisticated world-spanning AI that made civilization possible. Having known no other life, it was only natural that he entered the criminal trade of his rescuer.
Adjusting his grip on his stolen silent shot, he aimed it at the hover-truck driver. The driver was shortcutting through the alley to make time. He would pause for several seconds to make the turn into the more visible areas. Just gotta wait for the right…
The driver reached the perfect position. Shin did not hesitate. He fired the silent shot, watching as the hover truck’s window shattered right before the driver’s skull did. Scrambling down from the rooftop he had made the shot from, he drew his sonic gun, a cheap knock-off of the more reliable military models.
Carefully looking around, he approached the truck and yanked the dead driver out of his seat. Two of his thugs appeared and dragged the body away, presumably to be tossed into a dumpster. The rest carefully opened up the cargo area to make sure that they were indeed swiping hard merchandise, not Opees. Shin joined them and shared a grin with his enforcers. “Wha we got here, boys, is some hard merchandise,” he drawled in the sloppy dialect of the slums. “I’m sure KoreCorp gonna love gettin’ dis stuff back. An’ if they dun wanna pay up, sure to be somun who will.”
“Big Boss gonna reward us real nice for this haul, eh, Shin?”
“Yup. ‘Specially since no Opees be buggin’ us.”
‘Opees’ was street slang for the Office of Planetary Security and the corrupt police forces. They were one of the three arms of the Koren military, and inarguably the weakest part. Run by the Politicians, the police forces were more parasite than actual crime-stopping unit. Most of their efforts were highly publicized raids that were efficient in convincing the masses that the Police looked out for them. Shin chuckled cynically at the thought.
He stopped laughing when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the characteristic white combat armor of a squad of patrolling Republican Guards. The formidable Republican Guard—Reps—quelled minor uprisings, policed high-danger zones, performed disaster relief and rescue missions, tasks for which the Police were poorly trained. They constituted a genuine army under the authority of Mother and the Director of Perseis. Hardened thugs shuddered at the mere thought of confronting a squad.
Quickly, he whistled the three high notes that would warn the others of danger. This succeeded in bringing the Guards attention on him and the idling truck.
“You! Stop right there!” their captain bellowed. He was cut short when Shin’s sonic bullet hit the vulnerable spot in his abdominal armor. The other Guards took cover as Shin’s enforcers opened fire.
He was grinning as he turned his back on the gunfight. Not hesitating in the slightest, Shin got into the driver’s seat, gunned the engine and left the Guards—and his enforcers—behind.
This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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